About Sustainable Development

Goodwin Procter's Sustainable Development blog features news and resources to help professionals navigate the rapidly evolving green building and sustainable development sectors in today's real estate market, including information on:

About the Editors

Lewis G. Feldman
Partner/Los Angeles Office ChairLew Feldman is a member of Goodwin Procter's Real Estate, REITs & Real Estate Capital Markets Group. He serves as the Chair of Goodwin Procter's Los Angeles offices and heads the firm's Public/Private Development Practice. Mr. Feldman is considered to be among the nation's leading real estate and public finance attorneys, specializing in structuring, entitling and executing large-scale financings for real estate industry participants and the public sector.He is an active participant in many of the industry's most eminent associations and groups, including California's Coalition for Adequate School Housing, the International Council of Shopping Centers, Urban Land Institute's Public-Private Partnership Council, University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate, and the National Association of Bond Lawyers. He is a founding member of the University of California, Los Angeles' Ziman Center for Real Estate and serves on the boards of the Milken Institute California Center Advisory Council and the Los Angeles County Housing Development Corporation.Lew works in the firm's Los Angeles office and can be reached by email or at (213) 426-2688.

Douglas A. Praw
PartnerDoug Praw is a member of Goodwin Procter's Real Estate, REITs & Real Estate Capital Markets Group. He has extensive experience in a wide range of real estate and public finance matters. His expertise in public finance projects includes public infrastructure, sustainable project financing, utilities, multifamily housing projects, single-family master-planned communities and industrial projects. He has provided counsel to various sectors of the real estate industry, including developers, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, underwriters and municipalities and special districts and other governmental agencies in the States of California, Nevada and New Mexico.He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, U.S. Green Building Council – Los Angeles, National Association of Bond Lawyers and the International Council of Shopping Centers.Doug works in the firm';s Los Angeles office and can be reached by email or at (213) 426-2664.

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The immediate growth of crowdfunding efforts have had a major impact on the real estate market. Funds raised by online platforms have grown from $1.5 billion in 2011 to a projected $10 billion in 2014, with this rate of growth expected to continue to increase over time. Goodwin Procter, the UCLA Ziman Center for Real […]

Downtown LA is getting another economic boost and a historic landmark is getting a new owner, as the consolidation of AEG’s Los Angeles office moves into the Desmond warehouse building just a few blocks away from LA Live. “By bringing the AEG Live and AXS Ticketing divisions to The Desmond, we are reaffirming our commitment […]

The term “clean technology” can be used to describe a wide range of infrastructural development, such as clean energy, advanced transportation, manufacturing water technology, sustainable materials and waste recycling. According to a study conducted by The Brookings Institution, California is reportedly leading in the green job sector. Efforts involving clean technology have sprouted across the […]

Famed Swiss architect Peter Zumthor wasted little time in adapting his original plans for the redesign of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to address the concerns of critics. After scientists from the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits expressed apprehension over Zumthor’s original plans — released last year, due to […]

California faces a great challenge: drought. Reservoirs across the state are at a historic low. Wildfires have increased significantly. Home foundations are cracking because of dried soil. And even the State’s pistachio crop is suffering, leading to increased prices for consumers. With the difficulties mounting, California’s Governor Brown declared a drought State of Emergency this […]

A recent report ranked Los Angeles’ walkability among the thirty largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Washington D.C., New York, and Boston topped the list, while Los Angeles landed in the middle of the pack. Though presently ranked only 18th, Los Angeles’ walkability shows great potential. The report, published by Smart Growth America and George Washington University, forecasts Los […]

With ribbon-cutting ceremonies scheduled for July 17th, Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium is rapidly approaching its grand unveiling. More than two years in the making, the 1.85 million square foot stadium will be the new home of the San Francisco 49ers and will host Super Bowl 50 in 2016. Given its location in the heart of […]

On January 1, 2014, The California Revised Uniform Limited Liability Company Act (popularly known as RULLCA; Cal. Corp. Code §§17701.01-17713.13) went into effect. RULLCA, a modified version of the Revised Uniform Limited Liability Company Act first promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners in 2006, was intended to bring California’s Limited Liability Company laws more […]

In connection with the development of a new downtown arena, the Sacramento Kings announced recently that the team had agreed to purchase the Sacramento Downtown Plaza mall, a 14 acre development occupying 6 city blocks near the proposed arena site. The purchase facilitates the development of a 1.5 million square-foot mixed-use space which will connect […]

Our friends at the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, will co-host a Green Building Symposium on Wednesday, February 26th. The Symposium will take place from 12:30 to 4pm on the 3rd Floor of Korn Convocation Hall on the UCLA Campus. The event will feature a […]

Launched in 2003, by the Bloomberg administration, the New Housing Marketplace Plan set a goal for the creation and preservation of 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2014. According to a new report, through 2013, the City has succeeded in creating or preserving 160,000 such units at a total cost of $23.6 billion – the […]

On December 11, Judge Goodman issued a 41-page ruling claiming the zoning blueprints for the Hollywood Community Plan are “fatally flawed” and should be repealed. Causing a serious setback to the City’s development and growth plans, Goodman said city leaders failed to comply with state environmental law when they approved the project in June 2012. […]

On Tuesday of this week, the Sacramento City Council voted to suspend the traditional competitive bidding process for the planned construction of a new stadium for the Sacramento Kings. The push will allow the bidding process to move forward at an accelerated pace as the team will not be required to comply with the traditional […]

The Atlanta Braves have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Cobb County, Georgia for a new stadium in the northern Atlanta suburb to be completed in time for the 2017 season. The deal moves the Braves out of downtown Atlanta for the first time since they moved from Milwaukee in 1966. The project, which was […]

The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY) is seeking an injunction to prevent the City of Richmond, California from using eminent domain powers to seize and refinance more than 600 home loans with outstanding balances greater than the value of the homes securing the loans. The City of Richmond threatened to take such action […]

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny overruled a request from the California High-Speed Rail Authority to sell $8 billion of the $10 billion in bonds approved by voters in 2008. Kenny issued two decisions on Monday, based on findings that the project violates promises made to voters: (1) Kenny ruled that the rail authority […]

Earlier this month, St. Louis Mayor, Francis Slay, announced that St. Louis’ Affordable Housing Commission would dedicate $1 million to fund transit oriented development (TOD) in St. Louis. In making this commitment, St. Louis joins a growing number of cities across the country committed to developing transit oriented communities. St. Louis defines eligible locations for […]

The U.S. Green Building Council-Northern California Chapter (USGBC-NCC), part of the organization responsible for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rankings, recently launched the Building Health Initiative. The Initiative, which is consists of 27 prominent corporations including, Adobe, CalPERS, Google, Kaiser Permanente, and salesforce.com, seeks to address the topic of green building from a […]

On October 18, the Los Angeles Business Council (LABC) and UCLA professor, Paul Habibi, released the 2013 Livable Communities Report: A Call to Action. The report picks up from Habibi’s 2012 analysis, Building Livable Communities: Enhancing Economic Competitiveness in Los Angeles in which Habibi concludes Angelenos are generally unable to afford to live close to […]

Governor Jerry Brown passes bill that renews the Polanco Redevelopment Act* to give local government the ability to clean up and develop sites that suffer from environmental contamination. Earlier this month, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law AB 440 (Gatto), a bill authorizing local agencies to exercise the Polanco environmental remediation powers previously enjoyed by […]